Zorn: Play the veepstakes guessing game

& letters from readers along with a vintage visual tweets poll

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Eric Zorn is a former opinion columnist for the Chicago Tribune. Find a longer bio and contact information here. This issue exceeds in size the maximum length for a standard email. To read the entire issue in your browser, click on the headline link above. Paid subscribers receive each Picayune Plus in their email inbox each Tuesday, are part of our civil and productive commenting community and enjoy the sublime satisfaction of supporting this enterprise.

Midsummer break

I’m in the last of three weeks of vacation and travel, so posting will be lighter than usual.

Predict the veep choice

Before Vice President Kamala Harris chose Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate I asked readers to fill out these two polls this morning:

My picks were Shapiro and Kelley. I am on the road at the moment and like so many of the rest of you will be processing this pick today. Comments from supporters welcome!

Notes and comments from readers — lightly edited — along with my responses

Luther B. — If Donald Trump’s antics at the National Association of Black Journalists were planned to knock Kamala Harris out of the headlines, it appears to have worked wonderfully.

Zorn — I suspect Trump’s plan was to excite his largely white base by showing himself to be tough and defiant to an in-person audience of mostly hostile Black members of the dreaded media. I doubt he cared at all how he came off in that room.

His absurd claims that he was the best president for Blacks since Abraham Lincoln and that Harris “became” Black not long ago were not at all for the audience in the room.

Jeff Berkowitz — You wrote in favor of President Joe Biden’s idea of 18-year term limits for U.S. Supreme Court justices, with a term coming up every two years, but nave you considered that would mean that a president serving two terms could appoint 4 of the 9 Justices. Is that really a good idea?

Zorn — The idea has its drawbacks, to be sure, but I don’t think your scenario is even close to as bad as the fact that Donald Trump got to appoint three justices in just four years, and those justices will likely still be on the court putting their heavy, conservative thumbs on public policy for at least 25 more years, well after Trump is dead and gone.

David O. — While 67% of Americans are in favor of term limits for the Supreme Court, more than 80% of Americans are in favor of term limits for Congress.

Zorn — I have a long record of not being in favor of term limits for officeholders who must stand for re-election, as the ballot is the surest and most democratic form of term limits. And there is value in seniority in any legislative body. But I’m softening on that. Twelve years, even 18, for both the U.S. Senate and House seems like enough.

Suzanne McCracken — Thank you for providing the origins of the tradition of saying "Rabbit, Rabbit.” My freshman roommate told me about it, and for years I figured she just made it up. But it was a fun thing to do, so I passed the ritual on to my kids. Even though now they're all grown and we're not in the same household anymore, someone will text a "Rabbit, Rabbit" reminder in our group chat the night before the first of the month. We didn't know about "Tibbar, Tibbar" so that will become part of our ritual now too. Thanks!

Brigid Lusk — Thanks for the informative piece about the tradition of people saying “Rabbit Rabbit” as the first words out of their mouths at the beginning of every month. My family tradition is to say “White Rabbits” on the first of every month. Until your article, I never knew that there can be salvation if I forget to say “White Rabbits” before I say anything else. Thanks! After hundreds of doomed months, I will now start saying “sibbar etihw! “You have changed my life! 😊

 Zorn -- You are most welcome! Changing lives is what we do here at the Picayune Sentinel.

Andy Kachiroubas —I respectfully disagree with your description of the Dexter Reed traffic stop as pretextual just because it was for illegally tinted windows. I hope the police stop everyone with illegally tinted windows everywhere because it's scary when someone with heavily tinted windows pulls up alongside you in Chicago traffic. You don't know what is going on and neither do the cops.

Robert Engels —If you want to stop violent and petty crime,the first step would be to impound any car being driven or parked on the public way with illegally tinted windows. I don’t care if it is a $500 beater or a $500k Lamborghini. It’s an easy law to uphold and easy to apply without bias. Once these criminals can no longer hide in plain sight, both petty and violent crime will go down. Not to mention the city will make a boatload of cash during enforcement since the cars will need to be towed to the impound lot.

Zorn — I have no problem with enforcement of the laws regulating car window tinting. What I have a problem with, here, is the fact that the official story changed when the claim that he was pulled over for a seatbelt violation became implausible. That is strongly suggestive of a pretextual stop of someone because he’s a young, Black male.

I found the Tribune editorial Monday — “Here comes the predictable fallout from police watchdog Andrea Kersten’s inadvisable Dexter Reed cop-shooting assertions” — unfortunate for how it lashed Kersten, the chief administrator of the Civilian Office of Police Accountability (COPA), for her effort to be as transparent and forthcoming as possible in the wake of that event, and gave a pass to the police department’s languid and opaque response.

We kept being told at the time that the officers involved in shooting and killing Reed hadn’t yet been interviewed, and then no one from the department ever came forward to say that widespread reports about the reason for the traffic stop were wrong.

Four months later, of course the new story sounds like bullshit. And the Tribune wags its finger at Kersten?

Joanie Wimmer — I’m an attorney, and I read the city’s brief in the Dexter Reed case. The city wasn’t arguing that the officers stopped the car because of the tinted windows. The city was arguing that the officers could have stopped the car because it had tinted windows, and that, in and of itself, was a sufficient basis to dismiss the unconstitutional stop claims included in the complaint filed on behalf of Dexter Reed’s mother. The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibits “unreasonable” searches and seizures, and the courts have ruled over the years that the police officer’s subjective reason for a search or seizure is not controlling on the issue of reasonableness, but rather reasonableness is to be determined objectively. In other words if there was a sufficient objective basis for the search or seizure to make it reasonable, the search or seizure will be upheld as constitutional even if the police officer’s actual subjective reason for the search or seizure was nonsense.

Marty G. — I’m already looking forward to “Songs of Good Cheer,” the annual caroling party you co-host with Mary Schmich at the Old Town School of Folk Music. So are a couple of friends who attended with us last year. Do you know when you’ll be announcing the dates, or starting to sell tickets?

 Zorn — Funny you should be thinking of SOGC since we just had our first Zoom meeting about it yesterday, preparing to get into a studio and record some tracks for streaming. The dates for this year’s shows are Dec. 12-15 and tickets will go on sale in September, though we’re not exactly sure when yet. I’ll be updating all that regularly at the Picayune Sentinel, so keep an eye out!

Brian Soudi — In the Land of Linkin recommendation of Nick Quah’s top podcasts of 2024 so far, you included the podcast title and the name of the studio. But why include the studio, record label or publisher when they write up these arts products? We don't say Chevrolet (General Motors) or Chicago Cubs (Ricketts family).

Zorn — The reason is because so many podcasts have similar or identical titles. Several podcasts have “Tested” either in the title or as the full title, but the six-part NPR and CBC series about gender testing in the Olympics is the one that that Quah recommends. I recommend it, too. Johanna and I listened to it on a portion of our current car trip, and it couldn’t be more relevant given the controversy at the Olympics over Algerian boxer Imane Khelif.

Handy charts

The week’s best visual jokes

In the spirit of summer reruns. I’m posting here some of the best visual jokes from the early days of this feature, which started in late 2021 and didn’t become a poll until July 12, 2022

There’s still time to vote in the conventional Quip of the Week poll!

Why the new name for this feature? See “I’m rebranding ‘Tweet of the Week’ in a gesture of contempt for Elon Musk.”

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